What’s next?
Big East tournament road as unpredictable as COVID-marred 2020-21 season
One of the more prevalent words heard in college basketball this week will be “reset.” That’s what conference tournaments offer, a chance for a team with a difficult season in the rear-view mirror to start anew.
And that’s part of why the Big East tournament got off to an unpredictable start at Madison Square Garden in New York. No. 11 seed DePaul, which finished in last place in the Big East regular-season standings after losing 13 of the 15 conference games, was able to pull off the biggest first-round upset, knocking out No. 6 seed Providence.
“This time of year, conference tournaments, and the Big East, especially, is a special time,” DePaul coach Dave Leitao said. “But it can also be heartbreaking if you don’t play well. It’s a new week, a new start, so we can reset some things emotionally and physically.”
The Blue Demons earned a quarterfinal match with No. 3 seed UConn, which was played late Thursday night.
“I’ve taken two body blows this year, in Chicago and in Storrs,” Leitao said, referring to losses to the Huskies. “So
we’ll look at it like Providence, make adjustments in a short time.”
Leitao, a long-time UConn assistant with two stints under Jim Calhoun, was part of many great Huskies moments in Madison Square Garden, so he knows the experience from all angles.
“I’ve had 14 years of being on the other side of it,” he said. “For manyyears I’ve maintained myself as a tremendous UConn fan. My heart, at least a piece of it, will always be there. ... But this is DePaul 2021.”
DePaul had lost twice to Providence during the season. No. 10 seed Butler had lost twice to Xavier before sending the seventh-seeded Musketeers home early on Wednesday, and No. 9-seeded Georgetown had lost its only game against No. 8 seed Marquette but knocked them out.
“It’s huge,” Patrick Ewing said. “This is my first Big East [tournament] win as a coach, and I’ve been here four years. Unlike last time when we played Marquette, we didn’t falter, we kept fighting, chipping away and were able to take the game over.”
Then the Hoyas made themselves the story of the tournament, upsetting regular season champ Villanova, 72-71. Once again Ewing is a commanding figure at MSG, where he starred for the Knicks. At the start of the tournament, he had to show his passes.
“I thought this was my house,” he told reporters. “They should know who the hell I am. ... “The first step was getting the win yesterday. Today was the second step. We took another step in my house, by the way. This is my house.”
No. 2 Creighton ended the upset pattern, eliminating Butler 87-56. The Bluejays were awaiting the winner of UConn-DePaul for their semifinal matchup.
Most conference tournaments were canceled last March due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Big East tournament got underway without fans but was called off at halftime of a St. John’s-Creighton quarterfinal. That means for sophomores, as well as freshman, this March is their first experience with the ramped-up intensity of conference tournament play. UConn, in its first season in the new Big East, last played in a conference tournament in March 2019 and was eliminated in the American Athletic Conference quarterfinals by Houston, 84-45, in Dan Hurley’s first season.
The Huskies, who came to New York on a fourgame winning streak to end the regular season, have been tabbed by many analysts as the team to beat in the Big East tournament. Despite that, the Huskies’ lack of postseason experience is a concern.
“They need to understand that we’ll be playing a team that may be fighting to play another day for their season, [a team] that may be playing to get to the NCAA Tournament,” Hurley said. “We’re going to be playing teams that we can’t let be more desperate than us.”